Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Wonderful piece by Devin Faraci over at Birth Movies Death about Star Wars and where we are with George Lucas and his role as the creator of the whole thing. In it, Faraci hit on something that struck a nerve with me. A stats nerve. It's that bit thing that I cannot quantify or measure.

"Whether or not Star Wars is perfect or has plot holes or wooden acting or bad dialogue doesn’t matter, because the movie is more than the sum of those particular parts. It’s alchemical magic that works only once in a generation or two, and it can be copied and approximated but never exactly replicated. And that’s okay. You can play every single note exactly as The Beatles did, and it can sound the same but it will never feel the same. This is where all the art analysis in the world breaks down, where all of our words fail us."

That's exactly the thing that most miss, yet it's something that happens in everyday life. With sports, we like to separate the person from the action. Like they are only a figurine that we wind up each day and turn loose to predictable patterns.

I've spent a number of years pouring over facts and figures in trying to better understand the sport I love. It works alright. I reckon that if I managed some rec league team I could get them to be somewhere slightly above average. That's what stats can do. A championship, though? It takes something else.

Michael Parkhurst was brought in by Gregg Berhalter to be his voice on the pitch. Parkhurst is a mighty fine player, but his importance with Columbus Crew SC takes on an entirely different meaning were he on another "club" in MLS.

Berhalter and Parkhurst are what make Columbus Crew SC tick. There's an alchemical magic to it. Something we can't quite explain. Where data breaks down and the magical combination takes over.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

We've been talking about this since the dawn of the public internet back in the mid-90s and it appears it is finally here: People (households) are finally dropping pay TV (cabled) subscriptions.

How fast are consumers "cutting the cord"? Fast. It's going to take a while for it to completely die off (if ever) but it is clear that within this particular industry, cable has finally seen her day. She'll now spend her time attempting to mitigate the damage in the coming years.

GM was the face of the slowly dying American auto industry between the mid-60s through the 90s and now ESPN is emerging in that role for cable. Looking at the information in the table below you can see how it is warranted. Between ESPN and ESPN2 the "worldwide leader" has lost around 14 million subscribers from a couple years ago. More than any of the other top 5 networks.

[Figures in millions, sorted by most subscribers in 2015 to least]

NETWORK

OCT 2011

OCT 2012

OCT 2013

OCT 2014

OCT 2015

5-YR CHANGE

3-YR CHANGE

TBS

99,796

99,375

100,489

97,036

94,602

-5.20%

-5.86%

TNT

99,011

98,430

99,294

95,870

93,294

-5.77%

-6.04%

ESPN

98,648

98.179

98,891

95,256

91,772

-6.97%

-7.20%

ESPN2

98,470

98,126

98,861

95,233

91,679

-6.90%

-7.26%

TruTV

91,407

91,796

92,343

90,138

90,023

-1.51%

-2.51%

FS1

77,394

80,792

90,121

85,186

84,434

9.10%

-6.31%

NBCSN

74,989

78,068

79,145

81,767

83,623

11.51%

5.66%

Golf

82,934

83,944

82,964

79,841

77,077

-7.06%

-7.10%

ESPNU

71,948

73,258

75,603

73,882

71,445

-0.70%

-5.50%

ESPNews

73,264

74,319

75,829

72,666

69,744

-4.80%

-8.02%

NFL Network

56,550

62,093

72,464

72,203

69,032

22.07%

-4.74%

MLB Network

67,220

69,811

71,026

69,882

66,564

-0.98%

-6.28%

NBATV

54,400

59,845

59,950

57,566

53,933

-0.86%

-10.04%

FS2

31,750

35,943

37,271

44,840

47,827

50.64%

28.32%

ESPN Classic

32,648

31,219

30,826

27,012

24,917

-23.68%

-19.17%

Source: Sports Business Journal, October 26-November 1, 2015

Some of that they can't control. Channel bundling is the lifeblood of cable providers and the ESPN has seen their channels moved to the more premium packages. The exact reasons for that are locked away at the highest levels, but one can make educated guesses on why that might be.

You can tell from the figures above the whole model is shrinking at an accelerated rate year to year. It's possible it will level off with the bottom rising (like FS2 and NBCSN) and top falling but I expect that is years away.

From my view, it comes down to self-preservation within the cable industry. ESPN is expensive and is almost exclusively sports programming. Not everyone likes sports, shockingly. And even if they do, they don't necessarily need a 24-hour sport channel and would happily get news from the web or occasionally watch a NFL game on free TV or a NBA game in-between their favorite non-sports shows on TBS or TNT.

The days of non-sports fans paying for sports channels is ending. Bad news for teams/athletes and their salaries. https://t.co/4VQePBkuCG

Cable will be hemorrhaging subscribers over the next five years. Winners and losers will be decided by who best figures out how to drive customers to internet subscriptions. HBO appears to be the first from traditional cable to figure it out but there will be others here soon as people trim down their packages.

ESPN3 or Watch ESPN has been around for some time now, but it is anchored to a traditional cable subscription for use. It was only this year that ESPN has decided to unbundle and allow a standalone service via Sling TV. Very limited and right now that comes at a premium price. Unfortunately, for ESPN, their quality has been poor for a number of years.

I don't expect people to pay a large monthly fee for any sports channel, let alone one that has stagnated for a decade in terms of quality. They didn't see the writing on the wall when they lost talents like Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann and Rich Eisen (and more recently Colin Cowherd) yet continued to pay record amounts for programming.

The losers here will be channels. Content providers. "Cable" will live on as an internet provider, no question. I'm not sure they are concerned about that model, at the moment.

Last item here to note is that Total Pay TV in US households has dropped -3.89% over the last five years with an acceleration... -4.54% over the last three, while at the same time total US households has increased by +1.48% in last five and +0.52 in three. What that means is the % of cable in homes is dropping very quickly.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Things are moving fast since the MLS final last Sunday. We've seen a new list of free agents (of which my EA FIFA 16 campaign still continues) and a re-entry draft (or two?) and increased levels of Target Allocation Money (TAM!).

Earlier today Columbus let go of 25-year-old Chris Klute. Chris is a good player that was driving airport cars around Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta when he was given a chance by Eric Wynalda's Atlanta Silverbacks. From there Klute was loaned out to Oscar Pareja's Colorado side where he became one of the better defenders under 24 in the league.

All that seems like a lifetime ago, however. When Pareja left and Pablo Mastroeni moved in, development in Colorado stopped and a couple promising young careers jumped off the tracks. It was frustrating when the league and MLS media became infatuated with Mastroeni's damn mustache because it was clear that everything Pareja had done to turn Atiba Harris, Dillon Serna, Dillon Powers, Deshorn Brown, Shane O'Neill, Clint Irwin and Chris Klute into some of the most promising young players in the league would all be undone. Sure enough... we are two years later and exactly that happened.

Back to now, though. The start to the season was a bumpy one for Klute in Columbus. He didn't look quite right, but as the season went on he grew into the role. All in all he was a nice contributor to a Cup final season for Crew SC. +800 minutes and 16 (8 starts, 8 as sub) appearances at right and left back.

Today's move sends Klute to Cup winning Portland Timbers side for general allocation funds, where it looks like he will back fill the spot left by 26 yo. Jorge Villafaña. You'll recognize Jorge's name as the guy who shut Ethan Finlay down. A performance that likely helped along his $1 million dollar transfer to Santos Laguna in Liga MX (not a bad bit of business for Merritt Paulson's side). Villafana has a amazing career story up to this point as well. He's a great example of one of those kids in LA that do nothing but play soccer in their free time and why you'll hear some in the know say that MLS teams couldn't beat rec teams in Southern California.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Rick Gethin, Justin Bell and Larry Johnson get together to talk about what happened before, during and after the MLS Cup here in Columbus. Fun show, plenty to talk about. Remember, be sure to check out past shows over at Soundcloud and iTunes.

My first calendar year staying close to MLS television ratings has come to a close. Overall, it was informative and rewarding. I'll keep a close eye on it going forward but likely not with the same intensity.

The figures above chart both "ratings" and "viewership" for each of the 20 MLS Cup finals on ABC / ESPN. In recent years, MLS has been expanding to other platforms and networks like Univision Deportes and Unimas, but there isn't enough data there yet to get any sort of trend like ESPN. Important to not that Unimas did do well last year with LA market and Landon Donovan in the final, but I don't expect ratings to stay strong there over time and certainly not for a Columbus / Portland final.

Tracking ESPN is the cleanest way to evaluate how well the league is doing over the years.

It's important to look at these charts with a larger perspective, but it's not particularly needed. It's easy to see that ratings are trending down. In fact, this last Cup Final was the lowest rated Final in MLS history at 0.4 (which generously includes an extra 80k from Univision Deportes, ESPN notched a 0.3 rating according to Sports TV Ratings dot com). What that figure means is a share of televisions tuned to the event. With people migrating away from traditional cable (ie. cord-cutting) that's the one to keep an eye on. A "0.4" rating means less than one-half of one percent of all televisions on were tuned to MLS. The lowest in league history.

No doubt that MLS's target market contributed to the low figure as the 4:25 PM EST / 1:25 PM PST kickoff is right when NFL games kickoff. On the east coast, the afternoon game is usually the most watched event of the day (NFL games get astronomical ratings, 10-20 million tune-in regularly).

One general myth you see out there is that there are fewer people watching TV via traditional means. Live event programming has never been stronger (ie. sports programming) in the history of the medium. While cable subscriptions are relatively flat over the last five years on ESPN, they are up in on other networks. People are still buying TV by the zillions and sports leagues are making zillions from it.

I'll leave this post with one final chart. What is shows is ESPN viewership by program for the entire day of Sunday, December 6th, 2015. MLS is the 668k figure. Looking at it this way shows me that a college football playoff show was a lead in. I think that likely saved MLS from severe embarrassment.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Earlier this week MLS released a list of their first "free agent" class. 26 total players. Qualification to make the list is basically - play 8 years in the league. Almost all on the list were from the USA, over the age of 30 and overpaid.

Back on Monday, one of the MLS people said that the guys on the list would "make the playoffs" if they were on a team. I decided to put that to the test and create a team on EA's FIFA 16 (Xbox One) and simulate a season (via custom tournament). I'm towards the end of my 1st sim now. The team didn't make the playoffs.

In fact... they came in last. Restarting the process now, check it out!

More Details: I put all the guys on the Northampton Town Cobblers and swapped out the Philadelphia Union. This post will be up for just a little bit, if you want to watch just click on the video above.

[UPDATE: keep checking back, I'll be playing off and on for the next couple days. I'm kinda enjoying it. More broadcasts to come...]

Both players were critical parts to Gregg Berhalter's success thus far in MLS. Not just with their play on the pitch but what they (knowingly or not) offered off the field as well.

Let me explain that second "off the field" part for a second.

When Anthony Precourt and Gregg Berhalter took full control of the team they had thousands of decisions to make about staff and players. There isn't time to make them all in a short period of time so you work off a couple major philosophies to drive the rest going forward. That way you keep things consistent and fair. Not saying that everyone does this. In fact, it's entirely possible that these guys didn't... but I think they did.

Here's a quick summary of the two philosophical approaches to leadership / management change:

1. BUILDING ON EXISTING FOUNDATION: By not flipping over the apple cart and retaining many of the players they inherited Precourt and Berhalter allowed the team to be successful. There is a risk to this approach in that you just might not have the people around to get you where you want to be.

2. TEAR IT ALL DOWN, REBUILD: The other side of taking control of an organization or business is to clear out all the voices and habits of the old guard. Slam the door open, set the bar impossibly high, hire your own staff, ride existing staff within an inch of their life and then tone it down, bring back smiles and go into build mode.

Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay are from the 'old guard.' Upon his arrival we saw Berhalter jettison a couple voices from the locker room (like Chad Marshall) and insert his own (Michael Parkhurst), but he kept most of the rest of the group. This decision turned out to be completely successful.

You don't realize how much easier things are when you have people around that know how to turn on the lights and let the cat out (so to speak).

It's completely understandable for players to get a little emotional after a big loss. It's also completely understandable for both these players to make a little noise at this time as well. You gotta make hay while the sun shines in sports. Your career is only so long. Guys entering their mid to late 20s start to realize this.

I would like to see Columbus have complete freedom, but MLS is so restrictive in what they can offer them. Not just with the cap but also on an individual player to player basis.

Per MLS rules; MLS raises have a max increase based on current salary...

+25%: make less than $100k
+20%: $100k-200k
+15%: if salary greater than $200k

So, if you are making in the $100k - 200k range (like both Finlay and Meram) your max increase is is only 20% greater than what they made last year. Because of single entity and lack of any form of real free agency, they are pretty much stuck unless they have outside of MLS options (or are a USMNT star like Graham Zusi or Matt Besler).

Whenever I hear about players wanting to move on, I think of all the MLS rules they are tangled up in and wish them to get out if they have the option. Same goes for Finlay and Meram. GET OUT. It'd be great to have them here in town for another year or two but they climbed the MLS moutain. Explore something new. A new city. Fall down, fail, get up, succeed. Grow as people. Meet new people. Have some fun!

The deadline for MLS teams to pick up player options passed last week on December 1st. Teams making the final were given extensions (although it looks like a handful teams used the extra week to decide / announce).

Columbus posted theirs yesterday, less than 24 hours after they hosted the MLS Cup Final. Mile high view: ~20% was trimmed from both the overall budget as well as the "cap."

NOTES:Four down-roster players from the previous ownership group (Lampson, Speas, George, Schoenfeld) and three "in the 18" from the current (Pogatetz, Steindorsson, McInerney) appear to be moving on their way. It's strange to see George and Schoenfeld under the "negotiating" category as they are already at the league minimum. McInernery's contract (likely prorated this past year) is one they might be trying to work down. Something that doesn't happen often in MLS.

NOTES: So far so good for Gregg Berhalter and team in regards to maintaining a solid core from the successful 2015 team. The only risks I see between now and the start of next year come in the form of the January transfer window. MLS is notorious for not allowing free movement of players to other leagues, but Crew SC could have a few players in that group. Sauro, Kamara lead the list. Meram, Mabwati, Francis and Afful are internationals that likely have some options. In the youth category, you've got Swanson and Gall who have value.
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What's next for MLS rosters are a series of drafts (waiver and re-entry) throughout the month of December. A new twist this year is there is a class of "free agents" out there that meet the most recent CBA qualifiers of being 28 years old and have 8 years experience. MLS is a single entity so it is certainly a strange mechanism they have introduced.

First MLS "Free Agent" Class:
Looking over the list, I can see why the league agreed to it. It's mostly durable US based players who are overpaid mainly due to the fact they have survived and still pull a check in the single entity system (incremental increases year to year). My hunch is that these guys will be negotiating down, which is sort of the opposite of what the union expected.

"Rating" (far right column) comes from my own player rating system I've used since 2011. It's driven by (but not just) playing time and team results - obvious theory being; playing more on good teams means you are good. It's scaled 0-10, so a score of 5 is average, 10 is best. It is based on this season only.

Monday, December 7, 2015

It's interesting how I noticed different things watching the game from the stands versus watching it now, on a screen.

To put it simply, on the screen it looks more like a loosely called MLS match. In person, however, I noticed a man for man difference in quality and comfort with and around the ball. The passing and possession might not have been there for the Timbers (~70% passing as a team, ~40% possession), but they had no problem dispossessing Columbus players when they got into dangerous areas. Nor did they have any trouble working out or around Crew players stabbing at the ball. This effectively shut down a Crew SC that was hellbent on getting the ball crossed into Kei Kamara all season from deep wing positions.

Going back over it, Caleb Porter's Portland team was never really in trouble (only one shot on frame). The Columbus gameplan was no real secret and, with the benefit of hindsight, teams in the playoffs were able to shut down - Crew SC finished the playoffs with a losing record of three losses, two wins. All three teams they faced in the playoffs were able to beat them.

My short little video above is one possession later on in the game that shows the Timbers having no trouble with what the Crew were doing. In it, you see that the Crew had resorted (a bit) to having to get the ball into Kamara from deep. When Higuain gathers it he sends it over to the left wing (again, familiar) but two Portland players are there and have no trouble clearing the danger.

During the post game radio show here in town, Dwight Burgess and Neil Sika touched on the need for Columbus to enact a "plan B" when things aren't working and I couldn't agree more. Interesting, Columbus has another way of playing. If you look back at the end of last year (not the playoffs) and the game against DC that closed out the regular season this year, you see that Crew SC have options in playing style.

Perhaps next year will see more of a combination of the two instead of running just about everything through Kamara. Though, that did get them within a stone's throw of the Cup.

------------------------

Columbus finished the playoffs with 1.40 goals per game vs. 1.71 in the regular season. Their defense did improve with Gaston Sauro in the back line, even towards the end of the year. Regular season 1.56 goals against per game, 1.20 in the playoffs.

Portland did exactly what Cup winning teams do. Improved goal scoring in the playoffs and built on an already stout defense. 1.15 goals against all season, 1.00 in the playoffs. 1.83 goals for in the playoffs, 1.21 in the regular season.